任是无情也动人

Xover:
(FIN) 【星铁原】将军与帝君的国运之旅 -- Read most
+ Good MC interactions. Supporting characters are meh. Settings are so so.
(FIN) 星穹铁道：不朽的岩王爷 (aka 崩铁：摩拉克斯才是不朽正统) -- Read some then dropped
- Good premise/start, but gets meh starting with the Astral Express. Slapstick mischaracterization of HSR characters. Imbalanced xover.
(FIN) 崩铁：白厄，我名摩拉克斯 (aka 崩铁 钟离，开局获得存户瞥视) -- Read most
+ Better written than above. Not canon compliant with full HSR Amphoreus arc. One sided 男频 harem-ish bits get annoying.
(DISCONT) Fate：开局召唤出岩王帝君
+ OP conceptual god Morax with useless annoying summoner
(DISCONT) 从原神开始观影万界
+ Video content features Genshin AQ (thru Natlan), HSR trailblaze missions (stopped mid-Amphoreus), and FGO. Reactions from these worlds plus other random worlds.
(DISCONT) 综英美：旅行者的异世之旅
- GI characters physically travelling to MCUxDCU fusion world. Starts with M!Traveler, Klee, Childe; focus is more on MU/DC side.
(WIP) 连接原铁绝的聊天群
+ Zhongli part of the starter cast and done well. Chat rewards start off OP fixits and then get overshadowed by events. Canon events get revamped for co-op difficulty. Lantern Festival event dragging on 150+ chapters

国运:
(DIS) 国运领主，开局成为摩拉克斯 -- Nice premise, too short
(DIS) 国运原神：蓝星代表是钟离 -- Good start/premise. First challenge scenario dragged on too much; also no audience reaction.
(FIN) 国运禁地：扮演钟离的我尘世闲游 - OK start then skipped to end. Fake cosplay, actual reincarnation/conspiracy, BE ending.
(FIN) 【岩王纪】神州人类观测记录 - Cute start then quickly goes off the rails. But short and complete.

Ensemble 影视体 fics / WIP:
(WIP) 原神观影：空的旅程
- Initial audience are first gen Archons (many incorrect from canon). Later adds reaction rooms for "present" archons, and citizens. Lots of fanon/inaccuracies. Later arcs are pure copy pasta from canon and little reaction.
(WIP) 原神：争取能写到至冬（aka 刷的原神视频怎么让原主看去了) - Dropped ~ch200
- Questionnaire & reward format. Starts pre-game, system covers up thru Natlan. Favoritism towards Fontaine > Sumeru. Uses F!Traveller as excuse to harass loli characters. Zhongli treatment ok with some fanon cliches.
(WIP) 原神天幕：开局播放可莉哒哒哒 aka 原神：开局曝光钟离马甲
- Narrated by unknowing gamer pair. AQ up to Liyue, interrupted by fanvids and then derailed onto Luna version content. Lots of playing on memes/fanon. Actual GI character reactions are sparse.
(WIP) 历朝历代观影原神
- up to middle of Liyue AQ. Hosted by HSR!Aha and features extremely OOC chatroom for emperors.
(WIP) 原神：名场面都被曝光了！
- Dragged on with ID reveal. Dragging on with Fontaine story.

Ensemble 影视体 fics / Finished & Discontinued
(FIN) 从祭礼之舞开始曝光原神热门人物
+ Starts pre-Fontaine then adds them near end. Competition questionnaire format. Biased towards Inazuma > Liyue. OK depiction of Zhongli's character, no obvious cliches. World plot derail with zombies.
(FIN) 原神：播放刀子短视频，全员泪目 (aka 原神短视频，开局死刑吓哭芙芙)
+ Starts pre-Liyue but lets storyline complete (with some deviation) before blowing Zhongli's cover. Videos cover through Fontaine. Lot of fanvids, but mostly respectful. F!Traveler hits on adult female characters.
(DIS) 原神：魔神观影
- Audience from Archon War era, viewing AQ arc intro PVs (best read alongside vids), much later joined by post-Liyue arc archons. Emphasis on modern power levels, pro-dragon, pro-Fontaine. Extremely annoying dream god.
(DIS) 让历朝历代领略原神风采
- Awkward and longwinded Earth history sections.
(DIS) 原神：观影未来
+ Vision holders physically brought into theater. Reactions more serious than humor-based. Discontinued mid-Inazuma arc.

Other:
钟离捡回璃月的魈鸟是个战损版
+ Waffy start. But jumps the shark starting with Zhongli SQ2 (Azhdaha restoration); breaks SOD for illogical MC torture pr0n.
原神：剧透未来给本人
- Similar to 观影 style fics, but with a Gary Stu harem-ish protag interacting with cast and stealing Lumine's thunder. Goes off the rails starting with Sumeru; Dropped.
岩王帝君：与此世签订契约 -- Read to ch75
+ ISOT travel to modern setting. Loses focus after Venti & Ei show up. Skipped to end: timey whimey climax/resolution.
原神：从璃月开始，身配六国相印
- Nice poli-socio-economics worldbuilding. But also 男频 harem male protag; canon getting nerfed to build up MC.
岩王帝君：玄神界尘游 -- Dropped. Sequel to 岩王帝君：与此世签订契约. Reads more like (lackluster) original xianxia.
原神：钟离有个聊天群 -- Dropped after ch 128. Cartoony. 男频 harem elements exceeded tolerance.
帝君穿书后，全师门都癫了 -- Dropped. Awkward/retarded characterization of multiple modern(?) transmigrators, plus HSR!Boothill (o_O). No plot in sight.
岩王帝君在异世界也要努力退休 -- Dropped. Same author as above. Some OOC + messed setting.
听闻涂山有个客卿叫摩拉克斯 (aka 涂山帝姬钟离 in app) -- Dropped. Plot forced bonds with xover setting & cast.
见证盘古开天后，退休岩神想摸鱼 -- Dropped. Reads like xianxia original with name transplanted.
天星坠诸界：岩王帝君的次元纪行 -- Dropped. Severe power imbalance and messed up setting background.

Finally completed the Archon Quests up through the end of the Nod-Krai arc this past weekend. *Huzzah!* On reflection, I decided to do a personal ranking of how I liked the main Archon Quest story arcs. First up, the TLDR:

Sumeru > Natlan = Nod-Krai > Fontaine > Mondstadt > Liyue > Inazuma > Abyss Interludes

By Abyss interlude, I am lumping all of the extra acts at the end of each nation's archon quest, centered around Dainsleif and our main character's sibling.

( Details )

I had to make myself play the HSR 3.8 patch the weekend after it came out, which says a lot about how much interest I've lost in the game, lol. I guess the story is...ok.

I did like that it filled in a lot of blanks (*coughretconnedcough*) the awful parts of the original Penacony arc. Especially, it fleshed out the motivations of the antagonists, so that we have more than just Sunday's horrible memetic dove speech. And they managed to make the philosophizing...well, still a bit abstruse, but at least not as much soapboxy anymore.

The sudden insertion of the current banner character into the plot, retroactively, feels a bit awkward and very sales motivated. And I don't really like Dahlia's character all that much. But I have to say at least it wasn't *badly* done, and at least the narrative logic is fine. Personal taste aside, I'll roll with it.

The actual part I didn't like was the shippy parts with Firefly. Because I am obviously not the target demographic for it; it is very obviously geared towards the male fans who want to date the popular waifu character. So, eh, I did end up skipping some of those bits in the end.

Oh yes, also liked the extra bits with Aventurine. And the slight shippy interaction with Dr. Ratio at the very end (tagged "Sweet" dialogue option, lol).

Anyways, with all of that over, I plan to take a hiatus from HSR for now. Will likely still follow news and stuff on reddit and other online sources though. If the story takes a turn for the better, I may consider coming back later. Maybe.


As for the Genshin side, it is still continuing to take up a lot of time investment, despite my best efforts to stay casual, eh. I have finished the main story line up through the Sumeru archon quest so far, which is maybe around half? Though maybe not quite half, considering later archon quests seem to get longer and longer compared to the earlier nations.

There's a ton of side quests that are still in the backlog, plus the interlude arcs, which I plan to try and finish over the Xmas holiday period. Then will see about doing the Fontaine archon quest over the New Years holiday period. Hm... not sure if that's too fast. We'll see.

So far of the 5 star characters I have, 3 are 1.x Liyue characters, and one is a Sumeru character from the standard banner. In other words, all quite "obsolete" in terms of meta-ness. :p I am getting by in the overworld by not doing the ascension quest for world level 7, which really doesn't give too much benefit at the current point since I have all that needs to be unlocked for function. And then my main team being overleveled for the current WL.

As for pulling more "modern" meta characters... I am considering it. The current banner's Natlan characters are supposed to be very great low investment meta characters. But then the next major patch is going to feature the "Archon" of the current Nod Krai arc, to be paired with a new Liyue character for the Chinese New Year. On the third tentacle, I don't really like the design of this "archon", but also not sure if it's worth pulling the Liyue character by herself. Hrm... planning to wait until there are more leaked info about the next update, I guess.

Regarding the story so far... I do have to say I enjoyed the Sumeru arc. It was quite lengthy but also well paced and did not feel like any of it was artificially extended; there just was that much stuff to pack in there. In comparison, the Mondstadt and Liyue stories feel like they are way too short. Understandable for Mondstadt since it's technically the "prologue" arc. But Liyue's story also feels like a prologue, part 2, as well. Inazuma's story was just horribly paced. Of course, it feels like Mondstadt is getting a sorta continuation in the current Nod Krai arc, since there.

Setting design... I totally like Liyue and its extensions (Chasm and Chenyu Vale) best. Totally not biased. :p

Recently, the HSR forums/reddit has been abuzz with rumors that the upcoming entire 4.0 storyline is in danger because it's JP based, and is getting self-censored due to the recent political climate. The fact that announcement of the 3.8 patch infodump (scheduled for tomorrow) also came with the note that drip marketing for 4.0 won't be included, with no dates given for the delay...isn't helping.

Not sure what this means for the game as a whole. Like, we can't exactly hope that the politics side will die down over the course of the 3.8 patch. We also don't know if the original 4.0 story/setting was entirely or partially or only tangentially affected. So, I guess a lot is up in the air and just...wait and see is all I can do.

( HSR rant )

( Genshin update )

Note to self for future time reference...
https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Archon_Quest_Achievements

Hoyo might finally do something with the fact that Star Rail takes place in a sci fi setting! Or this might just be false advertising where the only space opera stuff we're gonna see is gonna be in the trailers... Eh, we'll see...

As we can see from below, there are a lot of familiar names coming to join the party: We seem to have 2 Xianzhou ships arriving, which I am guessing is going to be the Luofu and the Yaoqing. Not sure if we might see a bit of Jing Yuan and Feixiao again in the next patch.

IPC is sending some ships, and also carrying out the evacuation of 5 neighboring planets within 120 hours. Man, that's some pretty sick organizational ability. I mean, unless by evacuation they mean shunting the entire planet/star system away rather than moving just the people there. If that's the case, it's still sick engineering ability. There's a reason why the IPC are top dogs in the HSR cosmos. Hail Preservation!

Several members of the Genius Society have already been involved in the last few patches on Amphoreus. So we only have one more addition to the team this time. But then Screwllum also brings in his entire planet, amounting to what I guess is going to be the largest guns for the fight, I guess.

The Galaxy Rangers are mentioned...and in charge of coordination? Not sure if the Family (Harmony faction) is showing up but here's hoping...

( videos )

On a somewhat different topic. I have mostly finished building the free Dan Heng Permansor Terra I got (I did end up pulling his LC) and have tried him out a bit. No complaints about his sustain ability or animations, though, he doesn't feel to be a *significant* buff over Aventurine, just sayin'.

Still getting used to his model's new height. It just feels kinda awkward to ship him with other guys in mind now, with his new form. And also, because the 3.6 was just so blatant at pushing the MC/March + MC/Dan Heng ships, that it feels like certain design elements are on purpose, just to push that "canon MC ship" over any other non-canon yaoi ships.

Eh. I guess it's also because I haven't really been reading a lot of Dan Heng fics lately. Got accidentally sucked into Genshin fanfics (Zhongli centric, specifically) lately and haven't crawled out of that hole yet. -_-

Addendum: Cyrene's kit is more or less finalized at this point, and the general sentiment on the various leaks forums/threads/etc have been negative. The main complaint seems to be that at E0 her ultimate takes way too long to charge, and her buffs are lame for non-Amphoreus characters. So I am most likely skipping her, and getting Hyacine instead, plus getting Castorice to E2. I should have enough pulls saved up for this.

The new patch came out on Tuesday and I finished the main story mission last night. We finally get the patch dedicated to the new March 7 and Dan Heng banners! Yay!

First of all, to get it out of the way: Yes, the story telling this patch was well done. Top marks continuing on from the last few patches. It was mostly all dialogue and cutscenes, with very little battles or puzzles to interrupt the flow.

Focus very much stayed on our two banner characters. The story didn't sacrifice a lot of screentime for the older Amphoreus characters, even though they did show up in brief cameos. Cyrene, as the next patch's only banner character and the acknowledged dev favorite this whole arc, did get more screentime, but I feel like she didn't overshadow March and Dan Heng in terms of the story.

( March 7 / Evernight )

( Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae )

As for my banner plans. Like said above, I am still dithering about pulling Evernight or later getting Cyrene. The new Dan Heng sp is free, and I am probably going to get his LC. The rest of my saved up pulls is going to wait out for Hyacine, and probably getting Castorice E2.

The Amphoreus arc is predicted to end in the next patch 3.7, which will also need to contain the aftermath and tie up loose ends. Thus, it's not likely going to introduce any further plot twists. Likely we will get a new climax boss fight, and then a bunch of aftermath stuff. After that, 3.8 arc is supposed to go back to Penacony. Then after that, the 4.0 arc will start introducing the new Japanese themed setting. I feel like I am probably not going to pull much in 4.x, so might as well invest more for gameplay aspects in 3.x (hence going for Castorice E2). We'll see.

So, I have finished the story and also browsed through the v1 model/kit spoilers for the next patches new March 7 and Dan Heng new forms.

( story )

( upcoming banners )

It's been a while since I've done any of these, huh. I figure I'd just word vomit some of my recent(-ish) reads that I rather liked. Caveat: all ratings are my personal taste, so YMMV.

BL:

魔尊也想知道 by: 青色羽翼 - 10/10
Everything about it is great. The characters are all great: those you root hard for, the ones you end up pitying, the ones you end up despising. The romance, IMO, was pretty well done, which is honestly a hard thing for any romance story these days -- the top (MC) is wonderfully understanding and non-toxic, while still having flaws; the bottom is adorable and scary same time; their relationship looks unbalanced on paper, but the characterization and progression makes it work out. The story's pacing is great, exceedingly short for a xianxia genre story, and the plot moves swiftly without being rushed. And the humor, OMG, there were chapters where there were honestly like 50 pages of comments mostly consisting of readers going "Ahahahaha" and the effect. And it's well written humor, IMO, not having to lean on slapstick or memes like many other stories that try too hard to be funny. I gotta say, the author did a great job of balancing suspense, humor, and romance in this story. Highly recommend.

嫁给铁哥们 by: 衣落成火 - 7/10
Length wise, this is the opposite of the above, being on the long side of stories. (Though, if we go by this same author, she's written many longer stories, so I guess it's actually on the short/medium side for her.) This story was also written as a side thing while the author was working through writer's block on her main fic, and the results of that show up in that there's not as much action/suspense in it as her other works of the same genre. It's actually more closer to slice of life kinda story. Personally, I really loved the earlier chapters where the main couple hadn't "fallen in love" yet and are just being unconsciously fluffy together, while supporting each other in their "downtrodden/weak" days. After the point where the ML fully recovered and they left their home region, the story starts getting more formulaic (especially to someone who's read the author's other xianxia novels). But it's still something nice to relax to when I just want something to turn off my brain.

BG:

这不是钓鱼游戏吗[全息网游] by: 萨巫 - 8/10
I've read a bunch of (VR)MMO genre stories lately, and a lot of the ones I ended up dropping were because they broke my SOD too much, in that the game feels like it's completely centered around the main character, to the point where it stopped feeling like a multi-player game and more like just pure transmigration. This story stands out in that it consistently feels like a multiplayer game, and it's...fun. While the MC and her team are standouts, there are still enough focus on the background characters and the various guilds etc also doing stuff and accomplishing things that matter, that it still feels like a game. People's *attitude* feel like this is a game. And when I read it, I often feel like I want to go play a MMO... (then I remember my MMO accounts are for GW and STO, and drop the notion. :p) The romance only starts near the end of the story (the MC's ML shows up earlier, but they are only acquaintances and didn't meet in person til like the last third of the story-ish), so any romance in the story is an afterthought. Read it for the urge to game, not for the romance.

路人，但能看见主角光环 by: 羽轩W - 6/10
I really like the premise of this story, and it did start out quite strong. Some of the focus parts are also very "cool" to read. However, I have to admit as the author added more and more side characters, it started to get bloated, and also started to break my SOD. The main couple starts off already in a relationship, so there isn't as much out-right romance as there's a steady stream of (slice-of-life-ish) fluff sprinkled throughout the story.

No CP:

在各个灾变世界装神仙 by: 糖中猫 - 7/10
Overpowered but (not-so) slightly cray-cray female protagonist physically world-hopping to save the multiverse, with the backing of her home government (near future semi-post-apocalyptic setting). A lot of feels everywhere. But also a lot of stretching of the SOD. It's also a fairly short and fast paced read.

大乘期才有逆袭系统 by: 最白的乌鸦 - 7/10 (also got a wip manhua adaptation)
Overpowered and slightly wacky (but still responsible adult!) male protagonist going around slice-of-lifing undercover (since the story starts off with him already cultivated to OP levels) while slowly unraveling the mystery of the cosmos. Also featuring some physical world hopping. It's long compared to the above jj stories, but pretty short for a qidian xianxia story, honestly. I really liked plotting, how a lot of things revealed in later parts are well foreshadowed (or Chekov gunned) in earlier parts. And some of the humor is also nicely done, funny without having to resort to slapstick. The downside of the story is that it's written by a male author and it definitely shows in a lot of places. While I wouldn't say it's outright misogynistic, there are parts that were uncomfortable for me as a female reader, and I have a pretty high tolerance given the amount of period novels I've read. So take that as a warning.

Played the story quest for the collab today, and speaking as someone who only barely knows anything about the FSN side aside from the basic premises, I kinda liked it.

The story didn't go deep into the FSN side lore or anything, but did fill in bits of the HSR side lore. Length and pacing was ok to me. Some people complained about the silent film parts, but I wasn't too bothered since I was actually almost ready to play it without turning the voice volume back up. :p (I guess it's cuz none of my favorite characters were featuring.)

For the characterization, I can't say much about the FSN side, but from what I've read online, there weren't too much complaints about the them being OOC or anything, so I think the writers probably played it safe.

Of the HSR characters, I mostly want to mention that I liked Aventurine's parts. In my personal taste, he's much more likeable here than for most of the actual Penacony arc (understandable, since he was under a lot of pressure and trauma there). I also like the fact that it emphasized that for all that the IPC has a bad rep, Aventurine is very sensitive and respectful of other peoples free will. You'd think this is something obvious given his slave background, but all I could think of was the irony considering the vast amount of fanfic that has him cast as stalker/controlling bf/ignoring or denying consent (this is usually when he's in the top role). He also very obviously acts as the brain of the team in the story quest, which is another irony when I recall all the fics that cast him as a brainless beauty that relies entirely on luck (this is usually when he's the bottom). Just...eh.

Also nice thing is that we got one of the collab 5 stars for free: Archer plus his lightcone! (Well, the lightcone was due to meeting the criteria of making enough pulls on the concurrent Tribbie banner.) Similar to Dr. Ratio, it seems like the damage numbers for the freebie is pretty good too. Single target quantum element is also a role I don't already have filled, so double-yay. ^_^

Afterwards, there's not much I'm looking forward to up til the new March and Dan Heng. I don't have high hopes that they'll show up much in the next story patch either. So... it's gonna be a long wait.


Addendum:

Played a day of the new gameplay event, and I gotta say, of all of my DPS, Anaxa is the only one that's crushing it all so far. It's unfortunate that my older DPS like DHIL and Jing Yuan aren't able to keep up with the times. But it's surprising that Castorice, which is a 3.0 DPS as well, wasn't able to keep up as well. Not enough damage done fast enough, especially since she's built for slow speed stat. Whereas Anaxa is able to sync well with half the buff lines - speed, break, ults. Tsk... Since he's also someone I like the design of, it makes me tempted to pull for his eidolons when he gets his rerun.

Congrats for making world wide box office records all this time. I hear that it's finally finished its run yesterday. So now we start the wait for it to come online for streaming services. It's not gonna be the same as watching it on a big screen (and I never did get to see it on IMAX, boo T_T) but it's better than nothing.

That said, been browsing the various box office discussions in CN and US. Well, mostly CN because the topic has pretty much died off in the US aside from the really obvious anti-CN bots. Glad to see that the the tried and true adage of '人'红是非多 still holds true...lol.

So many haters dissing the movie for staying in theaters for "over half a year". Despite the fact there are 2 other movies also just leaving the theaters which were similarly finishing the 5 month run from the New Years bracket. But nobody cares about them. Or the fact that there is absolutely no other competition in the theaters this year, so what should theaters be kicking out its only money-maker be replacing it with? Feh.

And then there's the people claiming that the box office numbers are faked by a government conspiracy (these are usually voices from the US). Or are artificially driven up by propaganda urging the masses buying tickets as an act of patriotism (these are usually voices from CN). Quite the bit of historical revisionism going on. As mentioned before, I was following the CNY box office, and before the holiday period started, official state media were definitely helping promote some movies...but they were Creation of the Gods 2 and Condor Heros (both of which flopped *rolleyes*), not Nezha 2. Most serious prediction indicators had NZ2 making about ~30亿 (less than the total box office of Nezha 1, on the theory that it would be hit by sequelitis and the general "bad entertainment economy"). It was barely on the radar as a competitor by the other movies in that time bracket.

CCTV only started widely "promoting" Nezha after it started shattering box office records left and right. So in other words, state media belatedly hitched themselves onto this bandwagon after it had already strapped on boosters and took off. They were not the driving force behind its success. (IMO the "State" probably also had some of the conservative attitude of cartoons are for kids and only live action blockbusters are worth "backing"...but NZ2's success spoke for itself, and they still had KPI to fill. >.>)

And along the same vein, "patriotism" isn't the force behind it's success either. Because like with the 30e prediction, nobody was expecting it to make global records it did. Being proud of a Chinese film *after* it made said records, isn't the same thing as being the *cause* of said record. There's a thing called cause and effect; one comes before the other. *eyeroll*

Someone drew up this nice graph of Nezha 2's box office growth over time. As shown, it made the majority of its revenue during the holiday period up to 元宵.


Anyway, congrats again to Ne Zha 2. With those box office numbers, honestly it doesn't need to worry about the haters. Very obviously, the silent majority has already spoken with their wallets, and will likely do the same when Ne Zha 3 comes out.